


Auld Lang Syne (Marjoram and Yarrow)

by plumedy



Category: Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Father Figures, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sickfic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/pseuds/plumedy
Summary: Doyle falls ill. This leads to some emotional revelations.
Relationships: Joseph Bell & Arthur Conan Doyle
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	Auld Lang Syne (Marjoram and Yarrow)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DestielsDestiny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/gifts).



> You asked for a story with sick Doyle ages ago and I was in a mood to write one!! I hope it's still RTYI :D

The first time he came by was half an hour after my fever had spiked, leaving me bedbound. I could hear the spring in his step as he ascended the stairs and walked into my bedroom, humming something under his breath.

Trying to determine how much of that cheeriness was his own and how much came from his professional bedside manner would’ve been an overambitious undertaking. One never knew with the Doctor; he was passionate about his work and professional even in his passions.

But whatever the case, the broad mischievous smile he gave me caused warmth to spread through my chest, as if from a good cup of tea.

Or perhaps that was the fever. I knew only I was dead happy to see him, and a smile tugged at the corners of my own mouth.

“My dear Bell,” I said, in a bit of a strangled whisper. My vocal cords weren’t exactly up to scratch just then.

He laughed a little and shushed me, clicking his medical bag open. Its leather was worn almost through and in places sun-bleached, attesting to years of home visits. Bell didn’t like to replace serviceable things; the only exception to that was scalpels, which he went through at a somewhat alarming rate. _Steel is unforgiving_ , he’d told me once. _One irregularity and the path it cuts through the flesh loses its surety._ I thought then that there was something of that in him, in the perfection of his self-discipline.

Obeying his silent hand gesture, I pulled up my linen shirt. It was the lightest I could find, but it was still soaked with sweat through and through.

I felt his cool, dry fingers against the wet flushed skin over my ribs. Then the edges of the ice cold bell of his Cammann stethoscope. He shifted it rapidly over my heart, murmuring something soothing on the subject of the health benefits of Mrs Williams’ soup recipes and on the latest anecdotes from his children’s practice. Occasionally he’d pause to listen; then resume his somewhat one-sided conversation.

When it came to the lungs, he was whistling the tune of Auld Lang Syne, quietly and not entirely off-key.

I felt the bell of the Cammann slide over to my right side; then the whistling stopped, and did not resume. Whatever he’d heard through those ivory earpieces was not to his liking.

“H-mm,” he intoned, and set about meticulously folding the stethoscope back into its proper place in the bag. If I didn’t know him as closely as I did, I would’ve thought he was buying himself time.

When he finally looked up at me, he was smiling as before. But I couldn’t help noticing that the spark was gone from his eye, and that the knuckles of the hand he held the Cammann with were white with effort. I was worried he’d bend the tubes.

“Your right lung is inflamed at the apex,” said he. “The bronchial breathing and the crackles are unmistakeable. You’re in the first stages of pneumonia.”

“I would agree with this diagnosis,” rasped I, and earned a pat on the forearm.

“Good lad. You’re young, strong, and healthy; there’s no reason you shouldn’t have a quick recovery.”

There was no reason for him to have told me that, either – it was the tritest observation he could’ve possibly made to another medic – but I said nothing. I had my guesses about how he felt; my overwhelming emotion was, incongruously, that of shame. Shame at causing him pain. Shame at being a witness to his private feelings. But most of all, shame at the swell of near-tearful delight the intensity of his reaction brought me.

His smile faltered at the edges like a painted line smudged with an invisible brush, and finally he had to turn away. Through the haze of fever-heat and blood rustling under my skin I heard a metallic click and then the creaking of the floorboards under his shoes. My vision was swimming.

“Bell,” I called weakly. Before I could collapse, he caught me by the shoulders and gently lowered me on the sheets. It seemed to cost him no effort at all. Even grey-haired and nearing fifty, he held all the twelve shivering stones of me as if I were a child.

The window above my head cracked open just a smidge, letting in a breath of smoky air and a line of apple-gold sunlight.

I heard him call my name, in a tone of such unmasked concern that my breath hitched sweetly and painfully. For a moment everything was dark; then, with an effort, I blinked myself back into consciousness. The smell of medical spirits and wood lacquer held me there for a short time before another wave of deep black overwhelmed me at last.

Floating in the burning limbo of the illness, I alternated between long periods of heavy oblivion and short bursts of sensation. Sometimes I was aware of nothing; but every now and then I found my mind busy with disjointed thoughts and flashes of feeling.

I thought of the fact that the first time the Doctor had lost someone close to him to disease, it was the woman he loved. That the second time it was his child. I wondered if that word applied to me: _close_.

I remembered all the patients I had seen perish of lung-fever – old people, who welcomed it as a friend come to end their suffering; children, struggling for breath with plum-purple, glass-fractured lips; and a few like me, cut down suddenly by a foe they hadn’t seen coming.

I thought of my mother and my sisters and of Innes.

I thought that the Doctor was right and that I was more than likely to survive this, really, if with some residual scarring of the lung tissue.

I thought of his hands squeezing the Cammann to its breaking point.

I thought –

The second time I saw him, he was sitting by my bed in his shirtsleeves, half-turned away from me. The heavy, oily light of the kerosene lamp outlined him in fiery Blake-esque yellow.

After the few moments it took me to get my bearings in the waking world, I saw that he was holding something in his left hand. Every few seconds he mechanically turned it over, barely paying attention to his own motions. The flame of the lamp caught on the polished metallic frame. A photograph.

Bell must’ve heard a change in the cadence of my breathing, because he turned towards me and put the photograph aside.

I took in his face. The look in his blue eyes was alert and cutting as ever, but he’d clearly not slept. He was cleanly shaven, but a short angry scar ran down his jaw. That struck me; I had never known him to injure himself with a razor. His hands were too steady for that, too accustomed to the precision and urgency of surgical operations.

I sat up in my bed and immediately regretted the rashness of that decision. My whole body heaved with heat and bile in a fruitless attempt to expel the nausea that overtook me. I retched into the copper basin someone had prudently left on the floor, leaning against my knees and feeling bitter and sour sickness drip from my lips.

A warm hand brushed my wet hair out of my eyes. Bell extracted a large handkerchief from the pocket of his black satin waistcoat and carefully wiped my mouth with it. The soft cotton smelt weakly of carbolic and lye soap. It was the familiar smell of his office at the Infirmary, and it calmed my lurching stomach a little.

“Doyle,” he said quietly, in an attempt at reproach. “It stands to reason exertion would do this to you in your present state.”

His heart wasn’t in it. And a moment later he undid any edifying effect his words might’ve had on me by reaching out and tucking my hair behind my ears. There was so much care in that gesture – so much worry in his expression –

I don’t know if it was the fever or the unusual openness of his emotion, but I suddenly felt dangerously close to collapsing in his arms and crying my heart out.

“That may stand to reason, but I figure I have to at least be able to _stand_ before I’m able to _reason_ ,” huffed I, hurriedly clamping down on the swell of feeling in my chest. The Doctor acknowledged that attempt at comedy with a huff of his own.

I coughed, my lungs contracting painfully.

“Shouldn’t you be home by now?” asked I after catching my breath.

“Not at all.” He cast a brief glance at his pocket watch. “It’s only eight in the evening. The course of your illness so far has been tolerable, but I want to make sure there are no complications.”

With that he retrieved the basin from the floor next to my bed and left the room. It was another quarter of an hour before he returned, carrying a towel and a steaming glass.

I took the glass from his hands and greedily gulped down the contents. It was warm jasmine tea. Some of it ended up on my shirt.

Bell adjusted the rough woollen blanket around my shoulders and briefly took one of my hands in his.

“I’ll be here next time you wake,” he said matter-of-factly, giving my fingers a squeeze.

The photograph he’d been holding earlier was still lying on my bedside table. He took it from there, and in the split moment between that and him blowing out the fire in the lamp I saw exactly who was on it.

I had never seen that man before, and yet I knew him at once. The rich black curls, the sharp angular features, the expression – the tension in the corners of his mouth that betrayed the beginnings of a smile – there was no mistaking him for anyone else. He had Bell’s face.

After the Doctor’s footsteps disappeared downstairs, I turned to face the wall. The wallpaper, once bearing a blue floral pattern, paled almost to whiteness. A pervasive odour of herbs hung in the air – it was the mixture of marjoram and yarrow Mrs Williams used to scent her laundry. I closed my eyes; but even as I sank into the depths of red hot oblivion, I could see that almost-smile, frozen for all eternity within its frame.

The third time I awoke, I could not breathe. I emerged from unconsciousness as if from deep water, wheezing in a desperate attempt to fill my lungs with air. It wasn’t enough. I became aware of someone’s arms around me, of someone talking to me – soothing tones, but with an underlying choked-up urgency – and I couldn’t respond. Pain filled my chest and clouded my sight; I lurched upwards, but fell back down, winded by the effort.

For a moment I thought I would pass out. Then I took a shallow breath, and another, and my vision cleared.

True to his word, Bell was sitting on my bed, holding me half-upright. I croaked out his last name; he responded with my Christian one, his voice unexpectedly high-pitched and entirely strange-sounding.

“I’m all right,” I managed. “I’m all right. You said yourself – “

“I wish I had as much faith in myself as you seem to.”

“I trust you,” I said simply. I could feel the steady furious beat of his heart where my head rested against his chest.

“Had you stopped breathing,” said he quietly, “there would’ve been nothing for me but to curse my own helplessness.”

There was something visceral in those words, a long-nursed torment that cut me to the quick.

“I have seen the photograph you were looking at, Doctor.”

“Ah.” I couldn’t see his face, but I could just imagine the tired amusement in the quirk of his mouth. “Observant as ever, my dear friend.”

I struggled for words. “I’m sorry if this reminds you of – of his passing, Bell. I am ever so sorry.”

Silence.

“Is that what you think it is?” he asked at length. “That the reason I feel the way I do is because I cannot forget the deaths of my wife and child? That I look at you and see Benjamin?”

“I know they haunt you as the loss of Elspeth haunts me,” I said, and my voice cracked.

Would he have continued this conversation if he hadn’t been so shaken? For that matter, would I have ever pursued this line of inquiry with such insolence if I hadn’t been near-delirious with fever? I’m not a man of strong faith, but at times I think there was something fateful in that illness.

The Doctor carefully laid me down on the pillows and stood up, only to return with a glass of water. He knelt on the floor by my bed and brought the glass up to my lips.

“Drink up,” said he. “Last night you’ve vomited altogether too much for my liking.”

I raised my head a little and obediently choked the water down. Its coolness went some way to soothe the burning in my chest.

Bell watched me as if mulling something over, his fingers drumming softly against the headboard.

“What you’ve said is true,” he said finally. “But there’s more to it. I shall tell you.

“There’s an art in our profession of leaving the suffering of our patients behind – locking it into a separate room in our consciousness, as it were. I was never much good at it.” He offered a slightly crooked smile. “Neither, I suspect, were you. There are advantages and disadvantages to succeeding at this endeavour… but I digress.

“Be that as it might, everyone whose craft involves pain and grief must master, at the very least, the basic principle of distancing oneself from another man’s feelings. That was the reason I unthinkingly showed such callousness to you when we first met; even as you handed me what I should’ve realized was your most prized possession, I viewed it as a professional challenge, nothing more.”

His eyes were half-closed, clouded with the memory.

“A professional alliance, I told myself. A mentorship arrangement. I would teach you all I could because you showed the curiosity, the need for knowledge I valued above all else…

“And then it all went awry.”

He exhaled sharply and tightened his grip on the empty glass he was still holding. Then, visibly bringing his emotions back under control, he set it down on the nightstand and steepled his fingers in a familiar gesture of concentration.

“And I found I couldn’t distance myself from you. Your pain tormented me. I had to admit to myself that at the very least we were friends. That I cared for your wellbeing far beyond the bounds of professional sympathy.”

“Bell, you don’t have to – “ I began. Seeing him dissect himself like this for my benefit was almost more than I could bear.

“That isn’t all,” interrupted he firmly. He looked somewhat off-colour, but he had clearly made a decision on the subject. “Permit me to tell you this now, if never again.

“It is true that the loss of Edith and Benjamin was at times unbearable. You know what it’s like – that pain that ever gnaws at you. I was terrified Cecil would die, too. In my darkest dreams I drowned in my own helplessness.

“The time after the events in Edinburgh brought with it a change to those fears. My children’s death was my greatest terror, but in my nightmares the figure alongside Cecil was no longer Benjamin’s. It was yours.

“My hopes and aspirations changed, too. What I had previously hoped to accomplish for her I now mentally divided between the two of you. Your successes made me proud and your struggles caused me suffering as if in part they were my own…”

He trailed off and for a few moments all I could hear was my own laboured breathing. Something within me soared and sang with an indescribable mixture of emotion, so bittersweet I could almost taste it.

“I love you as my own child,” he said quietly, and gritted his teeth. “Lord forgive my sinful selfishness, but when I saw the goings-on in your household, I often wished you and Innes _were_ my own.

“But I have never meant for you to know this.” He sounded suddenly sharply self-conscious. “I do not wish for you to think that I mean to be intrusive – or patronizing – or that I would ever presume to insert myself into your relationship with your family. I merely wanted to explain – “

“You _are_ my and Innes’ family,” interrupted I, raising myself on one elbow with some effort. My skin was so hot with fever I almost couldn’t feel the tears trickling down my cheeks.

The Doctor’s face crumpled into an agonized shape, and he made a suffocated sound as if his own airways were closing up.

I dragged myself to the edge of the bed and slumped against his shoulder. His shirt smelt with Mrs Williams’ herbs. Then he cradled me in his arms and broke down utterly. I had never seen him lose control of himself like that. He bit down on his knuckles to quieten himself, but the emotion he’d kept hidden for so long spilled out all the same, in dry convulsive sounds. It seemed less like crying and more as if his body were trying to purge itself of some dark insidious poison.

_Steel is unforgiving._

“Anything,” I can still hear him say, as I close my eyes. “I will give anything to spare you that fate.”

_One irregularity and…_

The smell of marjoram and yarrow.

_The path it cuts through the flesh…_

I remember him calling me _my child_.

_One irregularity._

I remember the aching sweetness of the twisted gratitude I felt – gratitude for my illness, gratitude for every word he said, gratitude even for the suffering I’d endured because it had made him feel so.

I remember holding him as close as I could and hiding my face in his chest for what felt like its own small pocket of forever. And long after we’d let go of each other, he sat by my side and held my hand and told me things I couldn’t quite make out; but in a voice that made the burning in my blood feel like happiness.

I do not remember drifting off, although at some point I must have done, because next time I woke up wasn’t until the next morning.

As I regained consciousness once more, I became aware of a coolness in my limbs; of the air flowing quietly in and out of my lungs. The pain in my chest persisted, but dulled, as if through a thick layer of fabric. Through the strong smells of cotton linen and rubbing alcohol I perceived the faint aroma of bread and vegetable broth.

"Bell," I tried experimentally. My voice was stronger than I’d expected.

I heard the creaking of wood, and his face came into focus before me. His gaze was on me, and I could see little blood vessels under his skin, blue through his worrying pallor. But he was smiling, happy crinkles radiating from the corners of his eyes, and I couldn’t help smiling back.

“My dear Doyle,” he greeted me, dipping his head. “It gladdens me to be able to say that you seem decidedly better.”

“And it gladdens me to confirm your observation.”

“I thought I might prevail upon you to consume some food.” He set Mrs Williams’ silver tray down onto my bedside stand. “You look as if you could keep it down, and you haven’t eaten properly in an awfully long time.”

He was right. I took a look at the steaming broth in a blue wild rose-patterned bowl and at the loaf of fresh white bread, and felt my eyes glaze over with hunger. Bell gestured invitingly at the bowl, clearly pleased with my reaction; I didn’t need to be asked twice.

As I wolfed down the food, the bread honey-sweet in my mouth, the Doctor walked over to my desk, clicked open his medical bag, and began methodically sorting through his instruments.

“It’s a good thing that I was nearby, Doyle,” remarked he, giving his laryngoscopy mirror a loving polish.

“You know, Doctor,” I said conversationally, “for such a brilliant man you’re really surprisingly bad at lying.”

I saw the set of his shoulders grow tense. He put the mirror back into the bag and set about wiping the Cammann with a ball of gauze soaked in spirits.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” murmured he, frowning.

“Oh, come,” I said impatiently, setting aside my empty bowl. “When I first woke up, I was astonished by the fact that you had a scar from a razor blade on your jaw. There; it’s still not fully healed.” He touched his fingers to the ridge of pink tissue beneath his zygomatic bone and raised one eyebrow at me. “In all the time I’ve known you, I haven’t seen you injure yourself like that once. You keep your razors in impeccable condition.

“You’re all but a blue-ribbon teetotaller, and in any case I think the idea of you being intoxicated is preposterous. Therefore: the razor you used wasn’t yours.”

I crossed my arms on my chest.

“Meanwhile,” I said, “I know perfectly well that the blade lying in the bathroom downstairs is in need of a good sharpening.”

He avoided looking at me, but I saw his lips tense, threatening to break into a smile.

“Granted,” said he, throwing his hands up pacifically. “But my hands could’ve been unsteady with worry. I was hardly in a good state of mind.”

“Perhaps,” persisted I, ignoring the lump that formed in my throat at those words. “And yet you’re still a liar. I remember you telling me that you would be there next time I woke. Why would you have said this if you intended to leave? For all your genius, you couldn’t have known when I’d wake up.”

“I may have intended that as a gesture of comfort,” parried Bell.

I scoffed.

“You never make empty promises.”

He did smile then.

“I’m flattered this is your assessment of my character.”

“Moreover,” I said, “I know you weren’t even in Southsea when I fell ill; firstly, you would’ve written to me if you were coming; and secondly, as soon as I felt under the weather, Innes asked me for a sixpence in pocket money, which is the exact cost of a 15-word telegram to Edinburgh.”

Bell’s eyes were on me now, full of quiet mirth.

“You’ll have to forgive my co-conspirator,” he said. “He shows much promise but is not experienced in the art of concealment. He’ll learn to ask for a shilling yet.”

I laughed despite myself and felt that laughter reverberate painfully in the tissues of my right lung. Clearly there was going to be scarring.

“You came all the way from up north,” I said, when I was done coughing, “stayed by my side for the whole duration of my illness, and then lied to me about it.”

The Doctor shrugged disarmingly.

“I suppose I did.”

“Why?..”

“I didn’t want you to –“ he faltered and fell silent. After a time, he added quietly, “You’ve observed and remembered much of note, even in your feverish state. I suppose I am a poor liar, but it seems at least I’ve done a measure of good as a teacher.”

“It is true I remember much of note,” I said. Bell put the stethoscope down.

“Doyle,” he said, very seriously. “There’s much I wouldn’t have told you if I had my wits about me. You shouldn’t be saddled with – it shouldn’t be your burden to deal with my fears.

“And then I didn’t want you to misunderstand my sentiment as me seeing you any less than my equal. You deserve so much better than that.”

In fact I did not at all feel his equal, and his painstaking care for my wellbeing also felt wholly undeserved. I knew I would not have protected him from my anxieties as he’d tried to protect me from his. I would’ve done anything to have his friendship and comfort; to have him console me as only he could. How many times had I come to the Doctor with my grief and fear, and how many times had he soothed me – talked me out of doing all sorts of foolish things – made me hot tea with a spoonful of sugar – held my hands in his – let me take my wrath at the world out on him? No; I deserved none of what he gave me. And yet he cared for me still.

 _I wished you_ were _my own_ , he’d said. I looked at his expression, at the uncertain half-smile he was offering me, and could think only of how much I loved him.

“On the other hand, I’m happy you didn’t have your wits about you,” I said, ignoring the persistent prickling in the corners of my eyes. He actually laughed at that a little, and I saw his shoulders slump slightly with relief. “And I’m not so proud as to refuse your company and affection, if – if you truly wish to give them.”

“How could you think otherwise?” There was painful tenderness in his expression, his eyes darkened with feeling. And I felt ashamed even of the sliver of doubt I’d had.

The Doctor came to sit at my bedside and held my hands.

“Come now,” he said. “Mrs Williams should be up already; I’ll bring us some tea. You look like you could use it. And if you don’t mind terribly, I’ll stay here for another couple of days to see you recover.”

I reassured him that I did not mind at all. He retrieved the silver tray he’d brought up earlier and soon returned with some excellently strong black tea in Mrs Williams’ formidable teapot with an ivory lid knob.

We had the tea and conversed for a while, about everything and nothing. I felt tired afterwards; the illness had taken much out of me, and my chest smarted with exertion.

Bell stayed with me as I drifted off to sleep some hours later. He sat by my bedside, cleaning and polishing the remainder of his instruments under the light of the kerosene lamp. Through the haze of approaching oblivion I could hear him whistle, very softly, the tune of Auld Lang Syne.


End file.
